The President and gay marriage

I don’t think the President could have stirred it up anymore than he did today with his call for an amendment to the constitution that would effectively ban gay marriage. As I suspected, along with many of my fellow conservatives, the backlash has arrived on this issue. Don’t believe me? Take a look at this ABC News pollded):

Public support for a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriages has grown in the last month, leaving the nation split down the middle as President Bush announced his support today for an amendment. **Forty-six percent of Americans favor an amendment, while 45 percent say the states should be left to make their own laws on the issue. Just a month ago, by contrast, 58 percent wanted it left to the states. Much of the change has occurred in the West — an apparent backlash to the same-sex marriages now occurring in San Francisco.**

Apart from views on a constitutional amendment, opposition to homosexual marriages remains firm. Fifty-five percent in this ABCNEWS/Washington Post poll say they should be illegal, steady since last fall. And the intensity of sentiment is twice as strong among opponents: Forty-nine percent of Americans feel “strongly” that same-sex marriages should be illegal, while just 25 percent “strongly” want them legal.

The sodomy ruling from the USSC last year, along with the Massachusetts court ruling, and the marriage licenses being issued in San Francisco (and a New Mexico county) brought this to the forefront, without a doubt. The president, IMO, is doing the only thing he can to stop what he believes to be activist judges and local city/county officials taking the law into their own hands. Here’s the important part of his speech:

After more than two centuries of American jurisprudence and millennia of human experience, a few judges and local authorities are presuming to change the most fundamental institution of civilization. Their actions have created confusion on an issue that requires clarity.

On a matter of such importance, the voice of the people must be heard. Activist courts have left the people with one recourse. If we’re to prevent the meaning of marriage from being changed forever, our nation must enact a constitutional amendment to protect marriage in America. Decisive and democratic action is needed because attempts to redefine marriage in a single state or city could have serious consequences throughout the country.

The Constitution says that “full faith and credit shall be given in each state to the public acts and records and judicial proceedings of every other state.”

Those who want to change the meaning of marriage will claim that this provision requires all states and cities to recognize same-sex marriages performed anywhere in America.

Congress attempted to address this problem in the Defense of Marriage Act by declaring that no state must accept another state’s definition of marriage. My administration will vigorously defend this act of Congress.

Yet there is no assurance that the Defense of Marriage Act will not itself be struck down by activist courts. In that event, every state would be forced to recognize any relationship that judges in Boston or officials in San Francisco choose to call a marriage.

Furthermore, even if the Defense of Marriage Act is upheld, the law does not protect marriage within any state or city.

For all these reasons, the defense of marriage requires a constitutional amendment.

Did Gavin Newsom and the Mass Supreme Court really give him a choice in this?